The present invention relates to an assembly for forming an air-guiding element for use with a motor vehicle.
It is known to design air-guiding elements or air-guiding devices for motor vehicles as air-guiding elements having an integrated brake lamp. Assemblies provided to produce or form such air-guiding elements comprise a shell-shaped air-guiding body to optimize the air flow during driving, the body generally being made of a polymer material, and the brake lamp. The air-guiding bodies generally have a flat design as thin-walled injection-molded bodies having wall thicknesses within a range of 2 mm to 4 mm. Air-guiding bodies having thicker wall thicknesses cannot be injection-molded at all, or only with considerable loss of quality. Based on these structural specifications, it is necessary to retain the air-guiding body, in particular, also on the brake lamp that is connected to the motor vehicle, so as to prevent the air-guiding body from fluttering or deforming, in particular during driving, as a result of flow forces of the air flow in the surroundings of the air-guiding body. Measures to increase the inherent rigidity of the air-guiding body, such as ribbing, are difficult or even impossible to implement due to the structural specifications.
In the known solutions, usually retaining means, in particular screws, which extends through the thin-walled air-guiding body, are used to retain the air-guiding body on the brake lamp that is attached to the car body. This type of connection is not only quite complex to implement, but is also very prone to tearing of the air-guiding body material in the area of the screw extending through the air-guiding body material due to the thin-walled design. Additionally, the outer appearance is adversely affected and results in a lower-quality impression of corresponding air-guiding elements.
The air-guiding bodies of known air-guiding elements having an integrated brake lamp typically have an elongated opening which extends through the air-guiding body and which is closed off by the light emitting surface of the brake lamp or in which the light emitting surface of the brake lamp is accommodated. As a result, the use of retaining means extending through the air-guiding body material is problematic in the region of the air-guiding element that is visible from the outside, in particular, in close vicinity of the light emitting surface, also with regard to a visually appealing design of the air-guiding element. The primary reason for this is that these retaining means are difficult to recess in the air-guiding body material due to the thin-walled design of the air-guiding body, and consequently remain visible from the outside.